Under the Stars and Burning Embers
by gloryblastit
Summary: Ponyboy has a premonition and things might change.
1. Default Chapter

All that happened before happened again. It was happening still. I saw it all again.  
I said goodbye to my parents, they went for a drive. And the train again, they stalled on the tracks. Darry's stark eyes when he told me, "Ponyboy, they're dead,"  
And the movie, how bright the sun was after the darkness. I didn't mind walking home alone. I liked to be alone. Again and again the red corvair trails me, is trailing me, a disconnected terror. Five socs getting out of the car, surrounding me. Johnny. Johnny. Johnny. Would they do to me what they did to Johnny?  
And it passes, and I pass, too. Then we're at the corner of Pickett and Sutton, acting cool with Dallas. Under the fence again to the movie because Dallas wouldn't pay. And I talk to Cherry Valence endlessly after Johnny makes Dallas leave. Even as it happens again I stare at him, it was more than nerve.  
Under the stars and burning embers Johnny and I talk, it gets so cold. He wishes he was in a place with just people, wishes he was dead, what do the Chinese say? May you get what you wish for? I can see Johnny, tears on his cheeks, black hair in his eyes.  
He wakes me up, tells me to go home. But I'm afraid of Darry, Darry can't stand me.  
"Where have you been? Do you know what time it is?" Darry yells and yells he hates me.  
"I said I didn't mean to!" And he shoves me hits me hurts me I'm leaving, I'm leaving.  
I run to the park with Johnny, it is cold, it twists back on itself, time like a ribbon balled in a careless fist, I can see Johnny's breath and my own, ice forming on the edge of the fountain.  
Socs at the park white trash with mustangs and madras Johnny's eyes are wild like an animal in a cage and they drown me, drowning me. Water in my lungs red haze in my brain and this time unlike before I see Johnny pick himself up and flip out the blade. He stumbles toward the soc and the knife goes right in his chest.  
The church on fire again and again it burns the embers of my brain. I see so much more, I'm inside the church and outside it and Dallas pulls me out, knocks me out. And I hear Johnny scream as the roof collapses and Dallas goes in and pulls him out. So he is gallant, the thought like smoke, Johnny is badly burned. Johnny, no. I can't lose him.  
But I do. I visit him twice, once with TwoBit and once with Dally, day and night, we told the doctor we were his only family but he dies anyway.  
I can see Dallas losing his mind, his face crumpling as Johnny dies, "Please don't die, please don't die..." I think he said to Johnny. And he goes out into a thousand nights a thousand times, robbing the man with an empty gun so the cops will empty their guns into him. He called Darry so I could see, so I could see all my friends die, and my parents, and Johnny who protected me and saved me, Dally saved me, too, they died maybe I died I don't, can't think anymore, can't...  
"Ponyboy?"  
You know that moment when you wake up and you don't know what's real, the dream or your life? And then the dream flies away, disintegrates like it never existed at all? You know that moment?  
"Ponyboy?"  
Dad.  
"You were dreaming,"  
"Dad?"  
"It's me, kiddo,"  
The dream was already slipping into the cracks of my subconscious, but I held enough of it to know that I was glad to see him. Dad.  
I hugged him fiercily. So tight he couldn't breath. He hugged back, stroked my hair.  
"It must have been some dream," he said.  
Next day I felt edgy. My parents said they were going for a drive.  
"No!" I said, not sure why I'd fall apart if they left.  
"Ponyboy, we won't be long," my mother said. Golden hair, golden and beautiful.  
"No!" I said, blocking the door.  
"No, please..." Pleading, begging. It was important they not go.  
"Ponyboy?" My mother looked confused and upset, wanting to go for a drive with my dad.  
"Please, just this once, don't go, o.k.?"  
"O.k.?" Tears and heaving sobs how to convince them? Stay. Stay.  
"O.k., Ponyboy, o.k.," my mother looks baffled and I hug her, too.  
"Any other day, not today,"  
The night passes and they are with us, not at the morgue. 


	2. ch2

A/N: Thank you for the reviews. I wasn't sure if you'd like this, I'm glad you do.  
  
Months later Johnny's jean jacket on the ground in the vacant lot. Steve slings it casually over his shoulder to bring to Johnny's house.  
And I know, I know.  
"It's..." I start but the words stick in my throat. I see Darry on the porch, when I look up across the field I know already what I'll see.  
"It's what?" Steve says sharply.  
Warm spring day sun shining bright but it's getting dark now. Dark.  
"Look at the jacket," I say. He does and sees the dark blood on the collar. I'm sick already. I've seen this before.  
Johnny's low moan and Soda reaches him first. The wide gash from his temple to his cheekbone. The scar. The white tee shirt splattered with blood. This time I know he isn't dead.  
We were all there, around him like before. Twobit not laughing now and Darry, Dally swearing and I saw again the sick expression on his face. I didn't wonder this time. It made perfect sense. Dally had seen people killed in New York but he only loved Johnny. Of course.  
I turned away, but the reason was my own.  
"Johnny?" Soda said, and I heard his next words before he said them, reverse echo, 'hey johnnycake...'  
"Hey, Johnnycake."  
Huh. I couldn't quite take it. Change one thing change it all. I ran to my house.  
"Ponyboy?" my mother's worried voice and worried eyes.  
"You were dead before," I mumbled.  
"What?"  
"It's Johnny, he's hurt, he got beat up..."  
Over the next four months I watched the scar heal and everytime I looked at it I knew I'd seen it all before.  
Johnny told me he had the switchblade.  
"I'll use it, too," he said, that look in his eyes.  
"No, Johnny, no,"  
"I will, Pony. They won't beat me again,"  
Then the movie I saw all alone and the bright sun in my eyes and the socs, red corvair, over and over again.  
I know I'll be saved. Do things differently and different things will happen.  
"Are you all right, Ponyboy?" Darry shaking me, the socs all chased off. No. No. Don't let it happen again.  
"I'm okay. Quit it,"  
And it all flows on, the gang recites the lines as though scripted and Dally gets to his part.  
"Speakin' of movies, I'm walking over to the Nightly Double tomorrow night. Anybody want to come and hunt some action?"  
This time I'll stay quiet, I won't go.  
"How about y'all? Two bit? Johnnycake, you and Pony wanta come?"  
Quiet. No. No.  
Dally nudged Johnny and he looked up through the black shaggy bangs.  
"Yeah. I'll go," he said so softly. I'm not going. I'm not. No way.  
At home with my parents cause Soda went on his date and Darry went to his college thing and I'm staying here.  
The soft knock on the door and Johnny comes in. My mother greets him warmly and he smiles his shy smile.  
"I know what you're gonna ask and I'm not going," I say. He looks at me with that wounded look and my mother looks sternly at me.  
"C'mon, Pony, you know Dally might not show up,"  
"Good then. Don't go,"  
He shrugs and he goes and of course he has to go but I don't, I don't.  
I'm not going to that movie where all the trouble started. Talking to Cherry and having the socs come after us cause Johnny chased Dally away.  
Wait. Johnny did that he'll do it again and it'll all be the same...shit.  
Asleep on the couch I bolt awake and wonder what time it is.  
Two o'clock in the morning. I go to Darry's room and peak in, he's sleeping, it's all different now.  
I run to the lot and Johnny's asleep like before and I crash into him.  
"Huh? What?" he says.  
"C'mon, Johnny, c'mon,"  
We run to my house and it's quiet, two in the morning quiet.  
"What?" he says, still half asleep.  
"Did you make Dally leave the movies cause he was insulting those girls?"  
"Yeah, did he tell you?"  
"No, did you see the blue mustang when you were walking home and did Two bit smash the bottle and give it to you?"  
"Yeah," he said slowly, and a look like fear and disbelief was on his face.  
"I think it'll be o.k. if we stay here," I said, glancing toward the window, listening for the car motor.  
"What will be o.k.?"  
"It, it, just, shhhh," I couldn't tell him I had lived it all before but I saved him now.  
"O.k., go to sleep o.k.?" I said and he layed down on the couch. I layed down on the floor but I wouldn't sleep. I had a vigil, had to stand guard over him so he'd be o.k. this time.  
But the night was so quiet, no cars at all. Stillness. And I felt so tired. I could sleep now. I saved everyone. I could sleep.  
My eyelids just shut on their own, I felt like I'd been running all night.  
"Johnny?" I was almost asleep, but I had to check once more that it was all o.k.  
"Hmmmmm,"  
"Are you awake?" No answer. Boy, the floor was sure hard and I felt so cold. It must be morning, I could see the light through my closed lids. Cold.  
Johnny must have known I was cold. I felt him cover me with his jean jacket.  
I woke up in the late afternoon and the sweet relief flowed over me before I even opened my eyes. It's o.k. It's o.k. Johnny's jacket was still draped across me and...it was awful quiet.  
Just the sound of rushing wind in the trees.  
Just the sound...  
It was so cold.  
No.  
Oh no please no.  
But I knew even before I opened my eyes. The old wooden church and the stone floor. Johnny's initials in the dust. 


	3. ch3

"Be back soon, went to get supplies, J.C." It said in the dust of the church floor. Nothing had changed. My parents were dead. That soc was dead. Shit. Shit.  
I'd dreamed it all before but stopped none of it. The afternoon light looked funny in this place. Johnny's initials are the same as Jesus Christ, and that thought had its own kind of terror. I called for him but only heard an echo, "onny onny..."  
I went to get a drink from the pump and was surprised at the funny taste, splashed some water on my face. Wake up, wake up. I sat on the back steps and tried to think.  
It was only a dream. A panicky dream because Johnny killed someone and we were in big trouble. That's all. Nothing to worry about. We were fine even if we had to live in this church the rest of our lives.  
But I could test it with the details. In the dream I remembered that Johnny bought baloney, cigarettes, matches, peroxide to dye my hair, and I got mad again thinking about how stupid he made my hair look. He had wanted to hack our hair off with that damn switchblade of his.  
Gone with the Wind. I shuddered remembering that. He bought Gone with the Wind, I'd always wanted that book. But thinking about it that didn't seem likely. Yeah, sure, I wanted that book but I'd never seen Johnny read a book. He wasn't a great reader. He stayed back in school one year and everything. He won't buy a book.  
I heard him coming through the dead leaves and he whistled, the low whistle that ends in a sudden high note. It means, "Who's there?" I returned it and ran out the door and fell. Johnny peered down at me over his package.  
Inside the church I held my breath while he dusted off the table with his jacket and started to unpack the supplies. If he bought that damn Gone with the Wind then I'd have to tell him...tell him everything. I prayed to whatever God was listening, "please don't let the book be there, please..."  
"A week's supply of baloney, two loaves of bread, a box of matches..." I couldn't stand it. I had to see if he bought it. I dug into the bag. I felt the smooth cover of a book and felt cold. Squeezed my eyes shut and pulled it out. No, no, no. I opened my eyes. Gone with the Wind. We were fucked.  
"Johnny, why'd you buy this?" My tone was angry but I wasn't angry with him. He couldn't, how could he know? He looked at me, perhaps startled at my angry tone.  
"I remembered you sayin'something about it once. And me and you went to see that movie, 'member? I thought you could maybe read it out loud and help kill time or something."  
Uh huh. I saw the peroxide sitting on the table but no time to address that now. And Johnny's answer was word for word what he said in my dream. Word for fucking word.  
"Johnny, look," How to explain? The church is going to go up like a roman candle because of our damn cigarettes and you're gonna die, and Dally's gonna die, and who the hell knows, I could die, too. I'd heard that you can't die in your dream or you'd really die. How they know that is beyond me but that seemed to be the implication. We were all going to die soon.  
He was looking at me, patiently. And I saw it again, that hospital room and how he was burned, barely moving, the weird noises of the hospital machines. How he could barely open his eyes when we came to visit him, how afraid I was to even look at him.  
"Johnny, I had this dream, and it, it's coming true," That sounded stupid. He looked at me almost skeptical, not quite, though.  
"I know it sounds stupid but it's true. We have to leave, we can't stay here,"  
"We can't leave. Dally's coming in a few days, we can't leave,"  
"Johnny, that doesn't matter, we can't be here when Dally shows up. See, I dreamt all this. I dreamt that you bought that book and that you want to cut our hair..."  
"Yeah. They'll have our descriptions in the paper, we can't fit 'em."  
"That doesn't matter, Johnny! Will you listen! I dreamt all of this, and it doesn't end good, we can't stay here." I couldn't tell him what happens, that he dies and Dally dies and who knows how I'll die.  
"Ponyboy, I know you're scared. So am I. But we're o.k. Dally'll be here soon and it'll all be o.k., you'll see. Now we gotta cut our hair," He sat down and pulled out his knife. I didn't care about the stupid hair this time. Didn't care that he was gonna saw it off and bleach it that stupid color. What does your hair matter if you're dead? 


	4. ch4

My hair was short and blond. Johnny's was just short but it looked like it did at the fire and the hospital. I didn't know how to convince him that we had to leave.  
"I'm sorry I cut your hair off, Ponyboy," I glared at him, shrugged, "I don't care," I said.  
We sat on the back steps, the sunlight on us, and Johnny was shivering cause he washed his hair in that freezing water from the pump.  
"Johnny, we can't stay here," His teeth were chattering from the cold and he looked at me in such a way that was hard to describe. He looked at me like he was older and he was, two years older. But we were usually on equal ground, he didn't pull that older crap. Based on that look he gave me he was about to pull it now. And he also looked like he was in more trouble than me. He killed the kid, not me. Whatever would happen to us if the cops got us, it would be worse for him.  
"We can't be here when Dallas shows up,"  
"He said he'd be here in a few days, we have to stay here. Besides, where else are we gonna go?"  
"I don't know Johnny, but if we stay here we're gonna die, I dreamt it,"  
"It's just a dream," That look he was giving me, like he was older and I had no say was driving me crazy. I stood up and started pacing. The sun reflected off that cracked mirror Johnny had dragged out of the church and it reflected off the water, little sparkles in my eyes and I had to make him see.  
"It's not just a dream, it's coming true, and I am telling you that we can not be here when Dally shows up. Once he does there is no going back,"  
"What's coming true?" Johnny said quietly, looking up at me, shivering in Dally's jacket.  
"I dreamt you bought the Gone with the Wind book and you did..."  
"We have to leave because you dreamed that I bought a book?" He made it sound so crazy, and things wavered. Then I looked at the church and it was on fire. Dally said, "Johnny, get out of there! Are you crazy?" And kids screaming, high pitched little screams almost visible in the smoke and Johnny's scream...my vision cleared. It was just the church again, faded wood, white paint chips shining in the sun.  
"You bought the exact book you bought in my dream!"  
"You said you wanted it!" He shot back, his wet hair sticking up instead of hanging in his eyes like it usually did, and if I was right, it never would again.  
"And the peroxide, the baloney!"  
"Coincidence," he said with the finality of being two years older. It was his tone of, 'we're not going to discuss it anymore'. I sat down and hung my head. What could I say to him that would make him see?  
I went in, left him out there. Inside was worse, the fire was all around me. I looked up and saw the beam that fell on him, ghost children in smoky corners, no sound but I could read the words on their lips, 'save me, save me,' I held onto the table, if I hadn't I would have fell.  
I was angry with him for not believing me and went out, the sun flashing in my eyes. He looked at me, his big dark eyes following me as I paced.  
I was so mad I wanted to shake him, just grab the collar of Dally's jacket and shake him. I couldn't, though. I could if it had been Soda, shook him or hit him to make him see that he had to see. But Johnny being hit by his father, not just hit but beaten, I couldn't touch him. But I could yell at him.  
"Johnny, goddamnit, if we stay here we will die. I don't know where we can go but we gotta take off," He just looked at me, so quiet, implaccable. I knew right then that I had to convince him, had to. If I couldn't change Johnny's mind I'd have no hope with Dallas.  
Then a thought occurred to me, a dark little thought that kind of slithered into my brain and nested there. Johnny said, in the lot last night Johnny said he wanted to kill himself. And it wasn't the first time he had said it, either. So that was it.  
And I thought about it, thought about it hard for the first time, what his life was really like. I couldn't really imagine, my dad had been so reasonable, so understanding with us. I'd seen Johnny's dad, how he got when he was drinking. I was scared of him and he wasn't even my father. Johnny had to live with him and his mother wasn't much better. It wasn't just talk, I could see that now. Johnny honest to God wanted to kill himself. Saving him would be harder than I thought.  
"Look, Johnny, I know how it is at your house but, but, you're only 16 years old..." He was looking at me funny, a guarded look in his black eyes. I didn't talk like this, we'd always just accepted his crummy home life as almost a given. What could you do? They were his parents and if they wanted to beat the shit out of him that was their right.  
"It's like, you haven't been out of our neighborhood, there's more to see than this..." I closed my eyes, saw him in the hospital room, the burns, the oxygen thing in his nose, how tired he was. '16 years ain't gonna be long enough,' I heard him say it, as clear as if he'd just spoken the words into my ear.  
He was still looking at me with that wounded look, and I suddenly felt overwhelmed. Since I'd known Johnny his dad beat on him and probably has his whole life. 16 years of abuse. What could I say to him to counter that? I looked over at the little pond, the sun playing over its surface in gold streaks. But what sort of a death did he want? I thought I knew. One where his parents would feel sorry they'd been so mean. But it's not the one he would get.  
The headache started to beat behind my eyes. Maybe I couldn't stop it, the future set into deep grooves that were impossible to alter. Maybe Johnny was right and it was a coincidence, I was just spooked because Johnny killed someone, killed someone...God. I saw him, that soc, lying twisted in a pool of blood, and how it spread so slowly.  
He was still shivering, his hair soaking wet. We still had days until Dally would show, we still had time. I put my arm around him to warm him up. 


	5. ch5

"Johnny," I stage whispered at him. It was night and I was spooked. Nothing is scarier for a city kid than the woods at night. Something scratched at the church outside.  
  
"Yeah?" he answered in his sleepy voice. He was nearly asleep and didn't open his eyes.  
"There's a monster outside,"  
"What? We're gonna be o.k., Ponyboy," Then he was asleep. I thought it was easier for him to sleep here cause he slept outside all the time anyway. During the day with the sunlight I had almost convinced myself that a dream was all it was, so Johnny bought a book, so what? It didn't prove anything. But at night I knew the truth.  
"Johnny?" No answer, just the steadiness of his breathing. I got up slowly, sure that every creak would wake Johnny. But it didn't, he slept.  
I felt like I'd been given a second chance and I had to take it, and I thought I'd figured out how. I crept over to the food, broke off a few crumbs of bread and baloney and scattered them. I had all the food in my arms and looked over at Johnny. Still sleeping. I tried to be quiet.  
Thank God for the moon or I wouldn't have been able to see a damn thing. It hung yellow and full and reflected in the little pond. I made my way down there, stood on the edge, felt the ground shift from solid to boggy under my feet. I threw the food into the center of the pond and it rippled wildly. I glanced back at the church, sure that Johnny had noticed my absence or heard the splash and would be looking for me. He wasn't. I crept back, glad to be going in where Johnny was because I was spooked and lonely. I laid next to him and tried to get some sleep.  
I woke up before he did, the late morning sun coming in through the windows and the cracks. I sat up, groped for a cigarette, and tried to psych myself up.  
"Johnny!" I said, trying to sound alarmed, surprised, and dismayed all at once. It's like a play, I told myself. He bolted awake and sat up, looking so confused I almost didn't have the heart to go on. Then I remembered how it ends, and even in the strong morning sunlight I knew it was more than a dream.  
"What? What's wrong?"  
"All the food is gone, some animal must have gotten into it," I stared at the crumbs of bread and baloney. Johnny came over and looked,too.  
"Shit," he said, and kicked at the floor.  
"You should go to the store, we need more food," I said, glancing at him quick. He was starring at the crumbs and slowly shook his head.  
"No, Pony, you better go. You look more disguised," He looked at my blond hair and I touched it self consciously. I could feel my brain scrambling for a way out, he was right, I was more disguised.  
"Were you in school on picture day?" I said, still feeling my greaseless blond hair. There was a good chance he wasn't.  
"No, so what?"  
"So, if you weren't in school on picture day where do you suppose the cops'll get a picture of you?" His parents sure as shit didn't have any.  
"And," I went on, merrily seeing my way now, I knew I could convince him to go to that damn store, "if they have your description what will it say? Black hair and brown eyes? A teenager? Plenty of teenagers fit that description," He thought about it. I could see him thinking, Soda was like that,too. You see smoke.  
"Yeah, I guess you're right," he said. So he took off toward the store. I watched him go and when I couldn't see him anymore I ran back to the church.  
In my dream the original Gone with the Wind book he bought burned up in the fire and he'd asked for another one in the hospital. I grabbed it from the corner it was laying in and took it outside, layed it gently in the grass.  
What killed Johnny, and Dally, too, was the fire. And me, too. The fire and those screaming kids. I'd figured out how to save us.  
I struck a match and watched the tiny orange flame, touched it to the old dry wood. I lit other matches and threw them into the church. It started to burn, itty bitty wisps of smoke and then flames, licking at the old wood. No kids this time, no teachers standing around doing nothing. No Dally screaming at us and saving us, nope. Just me and the fire, and the smell got into my nose just like before.  
The church went up quick. Before I knew it the flames had nearly reached the crazy roof.  
"That oughta do it," I mumbled. I picked up the book from where I'd layed it on the grass and shoved it into my back pocket. Then I went to meet Johnny at the store. 


	6. ch6

I felt the book in my back pocket and felt a curious emotion, one I hadn't before. I was afraid of what Johnny would say or do when I tell him I set our hide out on fire. And where would we go now?  
He came out of the store carrying a box of stuff and I noticed how strange his hair looked so short like that. Seeing his stupid looking hair made me self conscious about my hair again. I looked like a blasted pansy.  
"Ponyboy! What are you doing here?" He sounded so worried. I could follow his line of thinking. He didn't want us to be together out in public, if you could call this little one horse store and a winding dirt road being in public. If someone read our descriptions and saw us together, well...but there was no one around.  
"Johnny, uh..." I felt sure that he could see the smoke and flames from here, but I turned around and couldn't see it, the view of the church was blocked by the rise of a hill. That made it worse, somehow. Like a dark secret.  
He was heading for the church. I looked in the box, he bought baloney again. Doesn't he know I hate baloney?  
"Johnny, uh, we can't go to the church," He didn't respond but looked at me tiredly and kept walking toward the church. I couldn't tell him and why should I? He'd find out soon enough.  
We walked toward the church together. It was awfully sunny out. I'd noticed that, when your life sucks sometimes it's awfully nice weather, like the world is saying it doesn't give a shit about your problems.  
"Holy shit!" Johnny said and dropped the box. I watched the supplies tumble out. He was staring at the church. It had collapsed in on itself and black smoke billowed up and away. It made that noise, that fire noise like a roar or like crackles, the sound of the fire consuming the oxygen.  
"No kids," I said softly and Johnny looked at me, shook his head like he had given up on me. We watched it for awhile, a nice pagen bon fire on a cool fall day. Then Johnny started getting nervous.  
"Hey, man, we better go. Firetrucks and shit will be here soon, maybe cops, too," I nodded in agreement and started to put the supplies back in the box.  
He just stood there looking at the fire, a look on his face like anger very carefully disguised as calmness.  
"You did it, didn't you?" Johnny said but he wouldn't look at me. I felt cold and scared, friendless.  
"Did what? Did this? No, I, I didn't..."  
"You're lying," He said it so quietly, with such quiet anger that I couldn't breath. Johnny had never been mad at me. I just stared at him, at the way he clenched his teeth, the way he wouldn't look at me.  
"Do you want us to get caught?" I could barely hear him, I don't know if it was because he was speaking softly or because of the blood rushing in my ears.  
"No, I didn't..." Then he did something I never in a million years thought he would do. He put his hands on my shoulders and shoved me. Shoved hard. I was so startled I fell and sat on my butt and just stared up at him. He was still angry, staring back at me and breathing through his mouth.  
"Damn it, Ponyboy! I can't believe you would do this! All because of a stupid dream..." I stood up and regarded him warily, afraid he'd punch me next.  
"It isn't a stupid dream! If you'd just listened to me, if you'd just take half a second..."  
"Why? Are you psychic? Lookit, I killed someone, and the fucking cops are after us and this was the only fucking place we had to go! And what do you do..."  
I was mad and shaky and tired. He wouldn't see. I grabbed his sleeve and he jerked his arm away then swung at me. He got a glancing blow off my jaw and it hurt like hell. I felt the gut reaction of anger you get when someone punches you but it was kind of nice. A break from all the worrying. I rushed at him and knocked him down. We both fell to the ground and wrestled and punched until we both had blood trickling from our noses and dirt and sticks in our hair.  
The fire raged and no firetrucks in sight. There was no one around to call them. The damn church would just burn to the ground. But I felt a real sense of relief and had ever since I set the damn thing on fire.  
"Are you o.k.?" I turned my head toward him but didn't get up. Maybe I'd just lay here forever and watch the church burn. He closed his eyes and nodded.  
"You?" He said, eyes still closed. "Yeah," I said, rubbing the spots he'd hit the hardest. We both just laid there for awhile, too tired to move.  
We did though, finally. We picked ourselves up and picked up the supplies and headed off. Without discussing it we headed for the field near the train. We had to sneak back into Tulsa and find Dally. If Dally showed up at the church and found it burnt to the ground what would he think?  
It was afternoon, that long part of the afternoon when the light changes and it seems to go on forever. I noticed how the sun made the tips of the long grass look yellow.  
Johnny was lying down, his fingers laced behind his head, looking like any hood relaxing in a country field. It was so quiet here, not like the city where all you could hear were cars screeching by and people yelling and sirens and whistles from the factories. And inside phones ringing and people talking, talking, talking, and t.v.'s blaring away. It was almost like Johnny had to kill someone just so we could get a little peace and quiet.  
"Johnny, in my dream Dally came and told us the cops were looking for us in Texas cause that's where he told them we were headed," he was looking at me with round eyes and my voice was strangely quiet, "he had a letter from Soda cause Soda found my shirt at Buck's and knew that Dal knew where we were. Then we left and went to a Dairy Queen. When we came back the church was on fire and there were all these little kids trapped in the church, they were on a school field trip or somethin' ,"  
It was so quiet here, the railroad tracks were gleaming in the fading light. Johnny was propped up on his elbows and staring at me.  
"The church was on fire and me and you rushed in cause we had to save those little kids, it was our cigarettes that started it. I was o.k. from the fire, pretty much o.k. but you weren't. They rushed us to a hospital and the next night there was a rumble cause you killed the soc and after it me an' Dally went to visit you and you died, right in the room with us, you died right then. And then Dally went and robbed some store with the empty gun he's been carrying around and the cops shot him. He died, too."  
Sunset. The grass looked red now. Johnny stared at me. I could tell he believed me now. 


	7. ch7

It was night. Johnny and I had baloney sandwiches and waited for the train. We didn't even know if one was coming. I heard crickets making that funny noise close to us, then far, like a sound in a fun house. I heard animals that sounded like crying children.  
A train rattled in. I had no idea what time it was, I had lost all sense of time.  
"That's it, that one," Johnny said and went toward it, hopped on. I followed him, not sure how he knew but unable to think. I wanted him to think for me.  
We went past the country towns, went backward toward the scene of the crime, rattled into Tulsa while it was still dark. I didn't sleep on the train this time.  
Tulsa felt like it knew all about us, we were marked. I saw cops behind every tree and car, creeping toward us. I began to wonder about the wisdom of trying to find Dallas.  
"Johnny, what time is it?" I said, but I knew he never wore a watch. Neither did I.  
"Midnight," he said, then grabbed me suddenly and pulled me down behind a parked car. A car roared by and I peeked. It wasn't a cop.  
"This isn't a good idea," I said. We shouldn't be here, the only problem was I didn't know where we should be.  
"You want Dally thinkin' we're dead or somethin'? " Johnny said, but not mad. I didn't care what he thought. But Johnny did.  
"No, I guess not,"  
"O.k., then, c'mon," I followed him, he seemed to know where he was going and I was starting to feel a sort of numbed obedience, thinking was hurting. I followed him past the cops who turned out to be clever arrangements of shadows, past the familiar streets that looked twisted somehow. Maybe it was me. I was the twisted one. I didn't think I was dealing with things very well anymore. I tried to tell Johnny.  
"Johnny, I don't, I..." He wasn't listening, he was staring across the street at some bar.  
"We're never gonna find him," he said so softly I almost couldn't hear him. I sat on the curb, too exhausted to stand. Johnny sat, too.  
"Let's go someplace warm, make up new names for ourselves, never come back," I said.  
"Let's turn ourselves in," Johnny said, "this isn't fair to you, it isn't fair making everyone worry about you," I wondered what time it was again, it seemed like it had been dark too long. There was no one around but I was still afraid, afraid a cop would come and nab us, afraid a soc would try to kill us. I felt the book in my back pocket again and wanted to take it out and read it, live in the Civil War for awhile instead of here, where no turn was the right one and no choice led us out of this maze.  
"Do you think I'll go to Hell?" Johnny said in a surprisingly calm voice. I'd been too worried about keeping him alive to worry about where he would go after he died.  
"I don't know,"  
I didn't feel right, like something was wrong and I should know what it is, but my mind seemed to be filled with the red haze again and I panicked. Maybe I was still drowning and that is why everything seemed so fluid and so slow. Maybe I was dead and this was my version of Hell, constantly running from the police and my brothers because I had done something terrible. If that was so then I could answer Johnny's question. If I was in Hell then so was he. And where was the dawn? This night seemed to have gone on for days and days.  
I shook my head to clear it and I realized that Johnny had been speaking to me, was still speaking, "didn't mean to, I honestly didn't mean to kill that boy but, but," he put his hands over his face, his head down. He could have been crying, I wasn't sure. I felt beyond crying, numb, trying to adjust to this night that couldn't seem to end.  
It was unscripted now. Johnny was crying, silent crying and his shoulders were shaking with the sobs. I was unable to comfort him, felt slow and languid, underwater. I looked at the sky and it was pitch black, like looking up through water at night. I was sure of it now. The dawn would never come. 


	8. ch8

"Hey, Johnny," I shook him gently. His head was still in his hands but I thought he had stopped crying.  
"Don't you think it should be light out already? I mean, it was dark in Windrixville..."  
Johnny didn't look any different, looking at me with that cautious suspicious look, but something was different.  
Something is wrong.  
I covered my face and started to rock back and forth. All the things crashed against my closed lids, richocheted off my skull, Dally taunting the girls at the movies, Johnny stopping him, the soc lying dead at our feet, the blood spreading in a sticky circle, black in the moonlight...the train, the fire, the hospital room, that hospital smell choking me, Dally, the blood trickling from his mouth after the cop shot him, just like a movie...  
It came so fast, image after image until it all blurred together and a headache hit me suddenly, the sharp pain like a blinding flash of light and I was convinced Johnny was dead. That this was the dream.  
Reality had a funny way of twisting away from me lately, like a snake you think you've got by the tail, then the tail grows fangs and bites you.  
I reached out quick and grabbed Johnny's arm, just to make sure he was there, just to be comforted by his concrete reality.  
"What?" he said, pulling out of my grasp. I blinked at him wetly.  
"I, uh, things aren't going too well..." He looked at me blankly. I didn't have much hope he'd understand. I looked at the sky, I was an experienced watcher of the sky. The stars hadn't moved. I was sure of it.  
"Shit, Johnny, what the fuck? The stars aren't even"  
"C'mon, let's go," he jumped up, brushing himself off. I watched him feeling completely unable to jump up and follow him.  
"C'mon," he said, and pulled me up. I followed him tiredly, trying not to think, just letting him lead. Thinking hadn't worked out too well.  
It didn't take long for me to figure out where he was going. Retracing the steps, following the trail backwards, and we were at Buck Merril's.  
"Johnny, we can't go in there,"  
He looked at me with that naked, desperate look. Out of options.  
"We gotta try to find Dal," We both looked up, hoping to see him in the window or something. But I felt in my heart that he wasn't there, almost the way you feel when someone is dead.  
"Oh, they're all drunk. Let's just go in," Johnny said. I shrugged and we went in, drunken bloodshot eyes not giving us a second glance, thin blond waitresses weaving between the patrons.  
Upstairs, the same room where Dally gave us the money and the gun. No one was there.  
"Maybe he's at the lot," Johnny said, laying back on the bed and I heard his voice echo in my head, 'wish I had me a weed now,'.  
"He doesn't hang out at the lot," I said, but I wasn't sure. Did he? I felt like I couldn't remember much about him, even what he looked like. My mind was steel cotton wool, couldn't think, couldn't remember.  
We went there anyway, passing the park with the fountain along the way, hurried past, neither of us looking directly at it, like an eclipse.  
The lot, burnt out fire, abandoned car seats, broken bits of glass. No one was here.  
I looked up at the leaves, I could see the orange around the edges even in the dark, and I remembered what Johnny said when we were here on the night, "I can't take much more of this. I'll kill myself or something," he'd said. He wished to be dead the first time and got his wish, same as Dally.  
I'd fucked it up for them. It was their wishes. Who was I to change their course?  
The train, Buck's, the park, the lot. We were living the night backwards, tracing breadcrumb steps like Hansel and Gretal...fuck was I tired.  
"Look, Johnny, I'm just gonna go to sleep," I curled up on the abandoned car seat bench, "Dally's gone anyway," I no longer cared, was no longer able to care.  
But he wouldn't let me rest. I knew he wouldn't. Cops could come, socs, and he was right. He was always right. I remembered what he said in the hospital when Dally and me went to see him, and I was sick and all beat up from the rumble and nothing Dally had said for the last hour had even come close to making sense.  
"Useless," Johnny had said, and he was so still and so pale, "fighting's no good,"  
Useless. Well, that made sense. So I got up even though I was numb from tiredness, exhaustion. I followed Johnny to wherever he was gonna go. 


	9. ch9

I followed him. I was so lost. I saw only his back, the flat blue denim of his jean jacket, the short black hair. But I was following.  
Whatever happened to that jean jacket? I wracked my brain trying to remember. He wore it so much, all the time, it was his only jacket.  
Oh yeah. It had burned up in the fire.  
It didn't even look like Tulsa anymore, cracked fun house mirror.  
"Johnny!" I called to him, so sure he wouldn't answer, so lost in this nothing place. It wasn't Tulsa.  
"What Ponyboy? C'mon," It was him, his deep voice, and I felt comforted momentarily.  
"Johnny, I can't. I can't go. Just leave me alone," I sat down right in the street, the houses dark around me, the leaves rustling, secret sounds with hidden meanings. But time must have started up again because the stars had moved.  
I didn't think he'd stop. He'd just keep going, leaving me alone. I almost didn't care, or tried not to. But he came back. He kneeled down beside me.  
"Ponyboy," he said, "you can. You have to. Get up,"  
Then I knew what was different about him. When I had seen him in the hospital and we showed him the articles about us saving those kids his eyes had glowed. But right now they still had that defeated, suspicious look like a puppy kicked too much.  
Saving those kids, now who would save them?  
"O.K. C'mon, I'll help you, I'm right here," he was saying. I wanted more than anything to not go, to lay here forever, to rot here. I could not go.  
"No, Johnny, O.K.? No, I can't..."  
"C'mon," he said, and stood up. He pulled me up and I let him. He started off and I followed him again.  
"I think I know where Dally is," he said. One foot in front of the other, and did the sky look a bit brighter? The stars fading.  
We went along the streets. Sometimes they looked more or less familiar, other times it was a kaleidoscope, and at times I couldn't even see Johnny in front of me. I'd call to him and he would answer, stop to wait for me. The sky lightened by degrees, and we were reaching the edge of town.  
"Why are we here?" I said, and I heard the sharp fear in my voice like an edge of steel, bright and deadly.  
Dawn had come. The tiny gold cracks in the gray sky, the mist just ready to burn away.  
Johnny had brought me to the cemetary. The gravestones almost glowed in the strange gold light.  
I felt my back pocket for 'Gone with the Wind'. It was gone. I must have lost it along the way. But there was something in my pocket. A piece of paper.  
Johnny looked at me, his eyes glowing. It was gone, that beaten, scared look. I thought of southern gentlemen from the civil war and I thought about that time Johnny saved those kids.  
I pulled the paper from my back pocket. It was folded up and covered with ashes and soot from the fire.  
"You saved those kids, didn't ya?" I said, and there was something so sad in my voice.  
He nodded and headed into the cemetary. I followed him. I had to. I had no choice.  
I could touch him and call to him and make him talk to me all I wanted. It wouldn't change a thing.  
He leaned against a gravestone and I looked at him, unable to believe how real he seemed. Everything was how it was. The scar, his big dark eyes and short clean black hair. The faded jean jacket.  
My face was wet. I was crying. I hadn't noticed.  
"Johnny," I said, wiping the tears away. The sky blazed pink and gold around us, the gravestones picked up the light. I could smell the tang morning autumn air.  
"I can't go with you like this anymore," Johnny said, and he sounded sad, too.  
"Why not? I thought I saved you, I thought..." I turned away from him. It was too hard to look at him, to remember. Instead I looked at the gravestone he was leaning on. It was old, one of those old ones where you can barely read the inscription.  
"Look at the sky," he said, "it's all gold," I didn't want to look but I did. He was right.  
"You'll be o.k., Ponyboy," he said in that soft, patient voice, "even though you don't think so. I'm gonna go now. I gotta go,"  
He walked away and I watched him go until I couldn't see him anymore.  
I blinked, looking around at the dawn. The folded note was still in my hand. I shook the ashes from it and opened it, started reading.  
"Ponyboy, I asked the nurse to give you this..."  
  
Then I woke up.  
  
A/N: That's it. It's done. The whole thing up until the last line was a dream. The reason it was confusing was because Ponyboy was confused...  
Thank you everyone for all your reviews. Please tell me what you think now that it's done.  
  
Thanks,

gloryblastit


End file.
